Dole Pushes Hot Button Issue Of Discrimination

By Candy Crowley/CNN

SAN DIEGO (AllPolitics, Oct. 28) -- Republican nominee Bob Dole continued to concentrate his efforts on California, stumping in San Diego Monday. But at his morning stop, there were no balloons or fireworks. Instead, Dole gave a serious policy speech on one of the country's most explosive, most enduring problems: discrimination.

"We believe it's wrong to use quotas, set-asides and other preferences that serve only to pit one American against another American, or group against group," Dole said. "The real focus should be on helping citizens who are economically disadvantaged -- to provide assistance based on need, not on skin color."

This year California's ballot will contain the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which would end race or gender based quotas preferences and set-asides in the public sector. Most Californians currently say they favor it.

President Bill Clinton does not. Dole first said he supported it about a year ago. In these final campaign days it is an issue Dole thinks he can use to push the state his way. So Monday, he offered his most complete explanation of his thinking.

"We cannot fight the evil of discrimination with more discrimination, because this leads to an endless cycle of bitterness," he asserted. "We must fight discrimination with equal justice and increasing opportunity."

Dole has supported racial-preference programs in the past but says those were supposed to be transitional efforts to speed up the process of inclusion.

Now he thinks he was wrong. "It didn't work," Dole said. "Every time I drive to work in Washington D.C. or drive down North Capitol Street and I see dozens and dozens of black men without work and I say to myself, what has this law done for them? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Dole seems to know he's walking through a minefield in a state where minorities are nearly half the population, and he repeatedly told his all-white audience discrimination is wrong.

"The end of quotas does not exhaust our responsibility to equality and opportunity," Dole said. "It only begins it. We should not discriminate by race or gender, but we should affirmatively act to help those who are economically disadvantaged or victimized by prejudice," Dole said. (192K WAV sound)

In fact, Dole argued that racial preferences have hurt the people they were supposed to help. He used some Asian-Americans who have been rejected at California colleges because they were "over-represented," as an example. Racial distinctions, Dole said, have no place in our lives or our laws.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

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